The bizarre biases of major media outlets emerge just as clearly from sins of omission as sins of commission. Consider a recent review in USA TODAY of a new novel about "The Love Story of the Century" -- the romance between King Edward VIII and the American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson. The new book, "Gone with the Windsors," takes an appropriately dim view of this distinctively dim (and ultimately pro-Nazi) couple, but the newspaper provided a sidebar with historical background that showed the typically selective press sympathy for Edward and Mrs. Simpson. Under the heading "A real, royal mess" the editors provided the following "brief history of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor."

  "1932: Edward, the Prince of Wales, meets Wallis Warfield Simpson, an American divorcee married to her second husband

    Jan. 20, 1936: Edward's father, King George V, dies. Edward becomes King Edward VIII.

    Dec. 10, 1936: Edward becomes the only British monarch to abdicate his throne voluntarily when he is not allowed to marry a divorcee.

    June 3, 1937: Edward marries Simpson after her divorce from Ernest Simpson becomes final. The exiled couple are called the Duke and Duchess of Windsor."

   These details may be accurate as far as they go, but they end up distorting the essential nature of the controversy that led to the abdication. As far as the opponents of Edward's love affair were concerned the main problem with the relationship wasn't the fact that Mrs. Simpson was a commoner, an American, or even a divorcee-- it was that she was a MARRIED woman, who was living with her husband when she began her relationship with Edward. In other words, there was a little matter of adultery-- and the valid concern that the whole nation and the institution of the monarchy would suffer if the king could very visibly steal another man's wife with impunity.

   By ignoring the essential nature of "The Love Story of the Century," sympathetic reporters then and now managed to suggest a self-sacrificing nobility in the Windsor's connnection that hardly matches the tawdry nature of their real-life affair. Of course, that affair bears more than a passing resemblance to the similarly inexplicable connection between another Prince of Wales, Edward's relative Charles, and his formerly married inamorata (now wife), Camilla. The fact that the Charles-Camilla marriage provoked so much less controversy than the Edward-Mrs. Simpson nuptials illustrates the decline in both public morals and, of course, the monarchy itself.

   This weekend, I've been intimately entangled with the federal government, making contact with two different departments of the gargantuan beast, with very different results.

   On the one hand, I've been struggling with the requirements of the Internal Revenue Service and trying to prepare (at last!) my 2005 tax return. Aside from the ridiculously large chunk of my personal earnings that has already made its way to Washington, D.C. (a comparable percentage to what President Bush and Vice President Cheney pay, on a mere fraction -- believe me! -- of the lavish incomes they make) the complexity and intrusiveness of the whole tax system drives me crazy. I don't think of myself as a stupid person, and I'm even pretty good (not great, like my Dad) with numbers, but like most Americans I would be totally lost if required to fill out my own tax return. This situation is insane--- I've been spending hours and hours over the last few weeks (time which could have been used to earn more money, create more wealth) trying to come to grips with all the bureacratic demands of the IRS. So help me, I'd be willing to pay even more than I do if they'd just leave me alone and not make the absurd demands on my time -- not to mention my accountant's time, for which he's handsomely remunerated (by me, of course). Anyway, the demands of completing these tax forms have cast a dark cloud over the entire weekend -- since I'm going in to the office at 7 a.m. Monday to take care of everything-- even while my experience with another government program gave me a much more benign view of the feds.

   That benign view came from our visit to Mount Rainier National Park. We've been to the park at least a dozen times before, and on clear days we can see the mountain (all 14,411 feet of it) from our home in the Seattle area. This trip, however, was special -- my dad is visiting from his home in Jerusalem and we made a three day journey in glorious weather to some of the most stunning vistas, cystalline waterfalls and enchanted forests anywhere on God's green earth. Mt. Rainier became a National Park in 1899 and whatever else the feds have done wrong (and there's a long, long list) they've done a remarkably good job in managing the parks that preserve our natural treasures. Even the most skeptical conservatives should look at an operation like Mt. Rainier with gratitude, and a sense that some tax dollars are well invested. At the moment, the National Park Service is in the midst of protecting (from earthquakes) and preserving the glorious, historic Paradise Inn on the flanks of the mountain, and building a new visitor center to replace a 1960's "space age" UFO-resembling atrocity with a more rustic facility which, based on the artists' renderings, will fit the landscape in a far less jarring manner.

  Meanwhile, millions of people visit this glorious park and discover that the picnic areas, hiking trails, entrance stations, restrooms, and all the rest of it provide first class hospitality. One highly personal example struck me with particular force. On the Sabbath day (Saturday) the whole family (my Dad, my wife Diane, and our two kids still at home, Shayna and Danny) took a brief hike together, but I wanted to make a more ambitious trek. The problem is that one of the restrictions for Sabbath observers involves the avoidance of carrying (since transporting objects from place to place represents the essence of commerce) which means no water bottle, or canteen, or compass, or map. Nevertheless, I tried to familiarize myself with the trail system ahead of time and headed out on my own, with an aggressive agenda. The trails were well maintained but totally deserted (I only encountered one other hiker on the whole trip) and I managed an elevation gain of nearly 1,500 feet-- exhausting and energizing, as I pushed upward in hopes of connecting with the legendary Pacific Crest Trail. Meanwhile, for all the joys of walking straight up through fragrant spruce-and-fir forest to the edge of timber line, I began to feel a bit worried about my situation. By two p.m. I'd left my family more than five miles behind, climbed up the side of a valley floor, and nearly fallen twice on a steep and very narrow trail. Since I was hiking alone -- with no cell phone or other means to call for help -- I began feeling a bit concerned--- experienced hikers generally frown on going it alone. Moreover, as the miles mounted up I couldn't be sure that I knew exactly where I was going. Had I made some wrong turn down below? How much longer before I connected with the Pacific Crest Trail-- a veritable superhighway in the woods?

   In any event, my little melodrama came to an end at precisely the right moment when, after several hours of wildnerness wandering without encountering a soul, I came upon a very welcome trail sign---a handsome, rustic wood marker, with clear indications of directions and distances. It occurred to me at that point that this sign wasn't a natural fixture of the landscape: somebody (a federal employee, no doubt) had gone to the trouble of trekking deep into the forest himself and placing the marker for my convenience, and for the assistance of all the other intrepid hikers who would make their way along the mountain paths. The notion that our federal government had paid for this investment made me feel a bit better about all the thousands and thousands I'd been sending to the IRS.

  And there's one more point along these lines-- another unmistakable demonstration that sometimes tax money can be put to good use. When we came into Mt. Rainier National Park we stopped at the Sunrise-White River Entrance Station to pay our fee. The very pleasant lady ranger mentioned the alternatives: a $15 pass would cover our whole car and all its passengers for a full week, or else a Golden Eagle Passport would give us unlimited access to all National Parks for the next twelve months for $65. In the last six or seven years, I've always gotten a Golden Eagle but with my schedule the way it looks this year, I wasn't sure we'd make enough National Park visits to make it worthwhile. At this point the lady ranger noted my dad on the seat beside me and asked, politely, if he was my father, and if he was over 62. I answered that he was indeed my dear old dad and, despite his youthful, vigorous appearance, he is, in fact 80. She then made us aware of a new option: a "Golden Age" pass which, for ten dollars, would allow my father and all other members of his party, into the National Park for this visit, and into all other National Parks for the rest of his life. As she explained: this pass doesn't expire until you do! What a deal! Of course, we got my dad the Golden Age Pass, and I couldn't stop thinking about what a great idea it was.

  After all, my American-born father served his country in World War II, paid his US taxes every year until he moved to Israel at age 64 (and for some years after that, actually) and now could receive something back for these contributions: a lifetime, very low cost access pass to the National Parks he loves. Somebody came up with a beautiful idea-- encouraging Americans of retirement age to make the most of their remaining years of life and vigor by visiting the most glorious nature preserves on earth.... better than Disney World, or any Caribbean cruise! There's something about the institution of National Parks -- preserving timeless grandeur for all succeeding generations - that ought to be particularly gratifying for those Americans Rush Limbaugh likes to call "seasoned citizens."

   Some bureaucrat in the Department of Interior/National Park Service undoubtedly came up with this lovely concept, and this Washington careerist deserves our thanks--- as do the other governmental employees who manage to overcome the mind-numbing mediocrity and incompetence of the federal monstrosity and, defying the odds, serve the people with occasional pride and professionalism.   

  A startling discovery in an archaeological site near Mexico City confirms the most grisly and horrifying accounts of Aztec combat and cultic practices.

   Skulls and bones from the dig at Tecuaque confirm historical accounts of a massacre of hundreds of  Spaniards and allied native peoples in 1520. The Aztec warriors ambushed a caravan that included numerous women and children and then killed them slowly and sadistically over the course of months. The new discovery showed about 550 victims "who had their hearts ripped out by Aztec priests in ritual offerings, and were dismembered or had their bones boiled or scraped clean" according to experts who spoke to Reuters.

  Archaeologist Enrique Martinex, director of the dig, indicated that the prisoners were kept in cages for months while Aztec priests selected a few day at dawn, held them down on a sacrificial slab, cut out their hearts and offered them up to various Aztec gods. Some may have been given hallucinogenic mushrooms or pulque - an alcoholic milky drink made from fermented cactus juice - to number them to what was about to happen. "It was a continuous sacrifice over six months. While the prisoners were listening to their companions being sacrificed, the next ones were being selected," Martine explained. "You can only imagine what it was like for the last ones, who were left six months being being chosen, their anguish."

  The priests and town elders, Martinez determined, "sometimes ate their victims' raw and bloody hearts or cooked flesh from their arms and legs once it dropped off the boiling bones. Knife cuts and even teeth marks on the bones show which ones had meat stripped off to be eaten."

   One might think that tthis new discovery might serve to remind the media that not all indigenous peoples were peaceful and gentle and kindly, living in perfect harmony with nature, living up to all the stupid P.C. stereotypes of the "noble savage." Some - if not most- native peoples in the Western Hemisphere were, in fact, brutal, primitive, savage, barbarians, given to the cruelest imaginable religious and military practices.

  Nevertheless, the Seattle Times, straining to avoid any story that might reflect badly on "native Americans" (or, in this case, Native Mexicans) headlined this account "Historical Discovery." After briefly acknowledging that the skeletons from the dig proved that Aztecs "captured, ritually sacrificed and partially ate several hundred people traveling with invading Spanish forces," the Times cheerfully and proudly added, "proving some Aztecs did resist the conquistadors, let by explorer Hernan Cortes, before the Spaniards atttacked the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City."

  Only among Indians -- everyone's favorite and most sacrosanct victim group - would proof of ritual sacrifice and cannibalism count as evidence of resistance and valor, rather than brutality and primitivism.

   Nearly all Americans feel rightly disturbed, even angered, about out-of-control illegal immigration, but it's demagogic and dishonest to rant endlessly about an alien "Invasion" that doesn't exist. 

  Consider the plain meaning of the word: the Merriam-Webster Dictionary lists the primary definition for "Ivasion":

  1. an act of invading; especially: incursion of an army for conquest or plunder.

  Does anyone honestly believe that the people who mow our lawns and wash the dishes in restaurants have entered the USA "for conquest or plunder"? Do the twelve million illegals currently working in the USA (some 40% of whom are non-Mexican) realistically represent an "army," with unified purpose and explicit marching orders to take over our country?

  Apparently, Pat Buchanan believes that illegals did indeed cross the border bent on "conquest or plunder" (or both): his new book, STATE OF EMERGENCY, bears the embarrassing subtitle: "The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America."

   The key issue in the immigration debate remains assimilation: will we do everything possible to encourage newcomers to embrace Americanism, to become law-abiding, constructive participants in this society, and to affirm the long-standing values of this country? And will we make a distinction between those who are eager to make that transition and those who refuse to do so -- encouraging the latter to leave the country and urging the former to legalize their status? When Pat Buchanan spent an hour talking about these issues on my radio show today, I repeatedly asked him, "How does it help the process of assimilation and Americanization to tell 12 million people in this country that there's absolutely nothing you can do -- no fines or back taxes you can pay, no process you can begin -- that will allow you ever, at any point in the future, to become a legal resident of this country.?" Buchanan never answered the question -- insisting that our only aim should be to force all 12 million of these people to "go home" (even if they've made their homes in America for the last 20 years). Meanwhile, Buchanan acknowleges in his book (page 267) as he did on my radio show that at least half of the illegals will remain in the US no matter what we do. So what should become of these people--- some six million human beings? Buchanan expressed no objection to their remaining "in the shadows" as part of an illegal underclass, without hope for improvement in their status or incentive for regulating their lives under American law.

    "Amnesty" remains a terrible idea because it implies a blanket grant of automatic legal status for everyone who has crossed the border illegally. Real immigration reform (as President Bush has rightly insisted) involves earned legalization, not amnesty-- it requires making a serious distinction between those who want to begin playing by our rules and those who don't care and are willing to continue living beyond the law. The problem with the Pat Buchanan approach isn't just that he'd allow half the illegal population to remain in the country (as he concedes)-- it's that his approach would make sure that it was precisely the wrong half. Think about where this logic leads: in Pat's world, if you care at all about obeying the law and want to work toward gaining legal status, then we demand that you to leave the country; but if you're willing to live beyond the law and function as part of the underground economy, disregarding all legal requirements, then we'll shrug and continue to tolerate your presence.

   That's the problem with the language of "invasion" and "conquest": these words not only distort the true motivations of most immigrants, legal and illegal, but suggest that the migrant masses function together under the aegis of some diabolical master plan. If all immigrants really operate as different units in the same invading army, then it's right to deny all distinctions among them. Buchanan's too smart actually to believe such nonsense, of course, but his current book promotion hype (complete with charges that those who disagree with him are committing "treason") only serves to pollute and degrade the public discourse.

  On the radio show today (Tuesday) I confronted one of the most annoying and incompetent guests I've ever welcomed to my program in more than ten years of dialogue and debate. Ruth Rosen is a historian and former UC Berkeley professor who wrote a provocative column asserting that Oliver Stone had gone along with the "Big Lie" of the Bush administration--- that Sadam Hussein "committed" the crimes of 9/11. I played her an excerpt of the President's Monday press conference in which he specifically, unequivocally acknowledged that Sadam had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks so she quickly retreated to claiming that it was Cheney, not Bush, who promoted this "Big Lie" (which she explicitly compared to the techniques of Goebbels and Hitler). Amazingly, this "distinguished academic" provided not a single citation -- not one! -- for her insistence that Cheney "often" misled people about Iraq's involvement in attacking the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A caller, hoping to rescue Professor Rosen, mentioned a 2005 appearance by Cheney on "Meet the Press." While the Vice President certainly discussed Iraq's long-standing support for terrorism, and many contacts with Al Qaeda (also cited by the bi-partisan 9/11 Commission) he never came close to claiming Saddam's idirect involvement in 9/11--- saying twice, "We just don't know."

   The Left has become so deeply attached to its slogan "Bush Lied, Thousands Died" that they feel no need to provide the slightest evidence of the President's "lies" -- deliberate fabrications or distortions of the truth. Concerning WMD's, of course President Bush (like President Clinton before him, and countless other world leaders) made mistatements (based on faulty intelligence) about the Iraqi threat-- but anyone who can't grasp the difference between a mistatement and a lie isn't ready for serious public discourse.

   Nor was Professor Rosen, with her propesterous case about a different Bush-Cheney lie--- for which she remained, for a full hour, unable to provide a scrap of evidence. She remained so badly informed about the whole run-up to war that she even insisted that President Clinton had never called for regime change in Iraq-- until I read her (on the air) the text of the "Iraq Liberation Act of 1998," passed overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress and proudly signed by President Clinton on October 31-- a "Public Law" which unequivocally defined regime change as a principal goal of US policy.

   Flustered by the on-air challenges, Professor Rosen accused me of "ranting and shouting" (I did neither) and insisted that I show her some 'respect" because she was a "Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley, and I insist upon that." Sorry, Professor Rosen--- respect ought to be earned, not demanded, even for former academics from beautiful Berserk-ley. And you can earn it by doing your homework on subjects you choose to raise in your writing, and agree to discuss on the radio.  

  Few films in recent history arrived with more pre-release hype than the cheerfully goofy horror flick "Snakes on a Plane," and few similarly high profile projects have earned more disappointing box office returns in the weekend of release. "Snakes," despite its cult status among internet geeks and the young males who represent the core audience for feature films, earned barely $15 million at the box office... about half the grosses predicted by many savvy observers. Conventional wisdom (endlessly recycled in the prestige press) suggested that the flaccid performance of the Samuel L. Jackson passengers-in-jeapordy epic demonstrated the inability of the internet to power a movie to blockbuster status, but the true nature of the film's failure contained a deeper lesson.

  According to many accounts, the producers of "Snakes" originally intended to make their film a PG-13 rated romp---a B-picture, shamelessly silly tale about slithering critters released in mid flight across the Pacific in order to bring down the plane and kill a key witness against a gangland kingpin. In fact, almost everything about the project suggested that it would squeeze box-office dollars out of boys between the ages of 12-and-15 like a giant boa constrictor -- but then the internet activists insisted on more racy content and an "R" rating, and the producers inexplicably followed their lead. The filmmakers went back for several days of new material--- including a scene of pot-smoking and steamy, bare-breasted sex in an airplane bathroom, and Samuel L. Jackson's notorious line: "Enough is Enough! I've had it with these mother%#@! snakes on this mother@#%! plane!"

  They thereby got the R-rating they wanted, and lost the youthful audience they needed. As long ago as 1992, my book HOLLYWOOD VS. AMERICA included a groundbreaking study that showed that an R-rating hurts box office performance-- and makes it much less likely for adults-only fare to recoup its investment. More than a dozen major studies (by distinguished universities and savvy marketing firms) since my initial argument have all confirmed the phenomenon I observed: G, PG, and PG-13 films reliably and substantially outperform R - films at the box office.

   The harsh rating (demanded by the bloggers and cultists who helped determine the final shape of the film) probably proved particularly punishing for this particular movie. Middle aged women, for instance, will feel little attraction to a project called "Snakes on a Plane"--- in fact females of all ages felt largely repulsed. Female problems with snakes go all the way back to the Bible (remember the curse of Eve?) so that the producers needed to rely on adolescent boys of all ages-- and the R-rating made it much harder to draw kids from the low end of that spectrum. My fourteen-year-old son, Danny, for instance, felt a powerful inclination to go out and see the movie with his two sleep-over friends this Sunday night, but I wouldn't permit it. It's rated R for good reason. Instead of "Snakes," Danny and his posse rented DVD's of "Bruce Almighty" and Clint Eastwood's "Bronco Billy" and enjoyed a more age appropriate (and cheaper) evening of entertainment.

  After all these years of evidence, it's amazing that Hollywood pilots still insist on flying directly into unnecessary turbulence-- getting an R-rating when it can only hurt their prospects for success. Ultimately, it was the obscenities and the sleaziness as much as the snakes that crashed this particular plane.

    I've been in the public eye for thirty years now (my first book became a best seller in 1976) and during that time I've been contacted by literally scores of people who wonder if we're somehow related. Most often, these contacts arise because of my distinctive last name ("Medved" derives from the common word for bear, in Russian, Hungarian, Czech and other Eastern European languages) with other Medveds assuming we must share a common ancestry. In every case that I've been able to check out (until now), these potential connections never applied -- the other family is from the wrong part of Europe, they don't share our Jewish heritage (most "Medveds" in America are Catholic or Eastern Orthodox), or there's simply no basis (other than the same last name) to assume shared family background.

   This morning, however, through a complicated series of coincidences I met a delightful guy who is, without question, my cousin--- my real cousin--representing a branch of the family we previously knew nothing about. The fact that we also turn out to share political and religious values also says something powerful and haunting about the impact of a shared bloodline.

   Rabbi Jonathan Hausman of Massachusetts initially made contact with one of my Israeli nephews after seeing his name on a list of bicyclists for a hospital fundraiser. My nephew put him in touch with my cousin Dvorah, also a Jerusalemite, and our unofficial family historian. She quickly determined that Rabbi Hausman (whose mother's maiden name was "Madwed," based on an odd Ellis Island transcription of the original Russian) descended from immigrants from precisely the same villages in Ukraine from which we came. Moreover, we identified the fact that his great-grandfather and my great-grandfather were brothers -- living (and dying) in Ukraine more than a hundred years ago. Meanwhile, these two brothers each named one of their sons Harry-- so that Rabbi Hausman's grandfather, Harry Madwed and my grandfather, Harry Medved, were first cousins. They were both working men, with limited formal education-- his grandfather a blacksmith, mine a barrel-maker. It appears that they definitely visited one another, getting together in Philadelphia, after they each immigrated to the United States. Rabbi Hausman specifically remembered his New York grandfather talking about going to Philadelphia to visit cousins named Zelda (that would be my vividly, fondly remembered Aunt Zelda) and Avraham (that would be my notorious Uncle Abe, known to all in our family as "Uncle Abe the Bootlegger.")

   The whole thing is so bizarre -- to sit down and talk about shared family lore from thousands of miles away and many decades in the past. Rabbi Hausman came out to Seattle for a Bar Mitzvah of another cousin--- Michael Madwed (I've never met him!) More over, both families are full of the same names-- Michaels, Jonathans, Davids, and, of course, Harrys. On a balmy Sunday morning the Rabbi drove out to our house and we sat outside in the summer sunshine, looking at the view of Mount Rainier, marveling at the parallels in our lives. He's the oldest of four boys; I'm the oldest of four boys. He tries to be religious, having moved years ago in a more traditional direction than the rest of his family; the same is true for me. He's an impassioned political right-winger, at variance with the members of his Conservative congregation; I'm also proud of the fact that my conservative politics places me outside the typically liberal "mainstream" of the Jewish community.

   Above all, I liked this guy-- and appreciated his determination in coming out to meet me. Soon he'll travel to Israel and meet my Dad, and my brother Jonathan (his namesake). The morning we spent together reminded me of the preciousness of extended family -- and left me feeling a bit chagrined at my lack of regular contact with those cousins I've known about all along. One of the disadvantages of the tremendous mobility we enjoy in this country is the vast distances between family members. It's too bad that our ridiculous schedules and geographic diaspora make it difficult to sustain the relationships that would have allowed his grandfather and mine, Harry Madwed and Harry Medved, way back in the 1920's, to take their family connection for granted as an organic, natural, nourishing force that enhanced their lives in the wonderful and challenging New World. 

  When a book bears the title "100 Ways America is Screwing Up the World" you don't expect a celebration of patriotism, but this new volume contains even less substance and less wit than a reader might reasonably expect. Moreover, when its author (John Tirman, director of MIT's prestigious Center for International Studies) appeared on my radio show, he embarrassed himself in dealing with even the most rudimentary questions.

   After he rambled on for several minutes about "genocide" against Native Americans, for instance, I asked him whether he agreed with Kevin Costner's statement, in promoting "Dances with Wolves," that it would have been better for the world if Europeans had never come to the Americas. "I can't possibly answer that question,"  Tirman replied, and then refused to dismiss the insane proposition that humanity might have been better served if America, as we know it, never had existed.

  His book also contains a number of howlers, beyond the expected leftist platitudes. Included in his listing of the "Ways America is Screwing Up the World" are such classic national virtues as the tendency to see our country as "Number One" ("Among the more obnoxious tendencies of redneck culture," Tirman sniffs) and the boost to the economy every year provided by the near-universal celebration of Christmas ("As a modern economic engine, Christmas is very much an American invention.") He also names Mel Gibson as one of his "100 Ways" -- not for his alcoholism or his anti-Semitic outburst (the book was written before that embarrassment) but for his direction of the film "The Passion of the Christ." Tirman loathed the movie and rejected the notion that "all this suffering somehow proves Jesus's uniqueness. But of course many thousands of political prisoners have endured years of torture, flagellation, and horrid (and anonymous) deaths. Many of these have been tortured and murdered by American Christians..." (italics added)

   On the air, I read this passage back to him and asked him to tell me which political prisoners he had in mind who had been "tortured and murdered by American Christians." He refered once more to Native Americans, but then backed off when I pointed out that fierce warriors on the battlefield hardly counted as Christlike victims and "political prisoners." After I posed the question several times he acknowledged that he couldn't name a single prisoner "tortured and murdered by American Christians" without doing further research.

   I didn't have the chance, however, to question him on another laughably inaccurate statement in his "Mel Gibson" chapter. He writes: "Hollywood has green-lighted new pseudoreligious projects to capitalize on Mel's pioneering trail." Does Tirman possess some inside information heretofore hidden from the public and all reporters? What "pseudoreligious projects" has Hollywood greenlighted after the spectacular success of "The Passion"? Is he thinking of "Superman Returns"? "Snakes on a Plane"? The striking thing about the entertainment industry, as I've commented many times, is that Gibson's success has inspired no notable imitators -- and no rush to cash in on religious projects.  

  The appalling aspect of this entire interchange involved Tirman's lack of preparation, his inability to defend his own work against my challenges. Of course, Mr. Tirman lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where his list of most admired Americans (at the end of the book) includes his neighbors and fellow academics Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn -- both of them also former guests on my radio show. These people function in an hermetically sealed, nearly all-leftist bubble in which few students or faculty will question the America-bashing assumptions they so smugly promote. If I were to begin my own list of "100 Things That Are Screwing Up America," sloppy and instinctively anti-nationalistic professors would rate a prominent ranking.     

A recent report by Associated Press proudly declared: “Heavy metal is growing up.”

Why is this form of music traditionally associated with hedonism and Satanism suddenly deserving of new respect? Because, the AP insists, “the genre is increasingly incorporating social and political messages into its dense power chords.”

What kind of message music earns praise from the mainstream media? The Associated Press specifically praises a delightful ballad by Cattle Decapitation called “Veal and the Cult of Torture,” and other works by this band of ardent vegetarians protesting the consumption of meat.

Meanwhile, the death metal band Six Feet Under gets credit for a contribution to the national discourse called “Amerika the Brutal” – a searing response to “America the Beautiful.” As reporter Justin Morton concedes, the politics from heavy metal bands “lean heavily to the left.” It actually reveals more about the Associated Press and other establishment media than it does about heavy metal bands when journalists see left-wing activism and tirades like “America the Brutal” as a sign of maturity and depth.

  In response to the UN ceasefire in Lebanon, the standard media incantation seems to be, "both sides are claiming victory."

   But both sides, obviously can't be right about those claims. To reach an honest deterimination of who lost and who won the war in Lebanon, consider the announced war aims of the two combatants. Neither Hezbollah nor Israel proved shy or equivocal in articulating their goals in the conflict.

   The Hezbollah terrorists fought, as they've always fought, to bring about the destruction of Israel -- or the "Zionist entity," as they prefer to designate the Jewish state. While some 4,000 rockets struck Northern Israel and killed more than 50 civilians (including, it should be noted, a wildly disproportionate percentage of Israeli Arabs), no serious observer could claim that Israel today stands notably closer to liquidation. While tourism certainly suffered, the economic in general remained remarkably strong and the nation's morale never flagged, with overwhelming support for the war even in the face of well-deserved criticism of the way it was conducted. Moreover, Hezbollah will find it even harder to launch Israel-destroying attacks after the insertion of a formidable UN army (the first serious international force ever dispatched to the Middle East) with the explicit purpose of stopping future Hezbollah raids or missile attacks across the border with Israel. The terrorists may fire their guns in the air in celebration of their alleged "victory" (they actually seize any excuse whatever to fire their guns) but with one fourth of their fighting men dead, their headquarters and infrastructure decimated, their weapons stocks depleted or destroyed, a month of fighting left them futher from, not closer to, their goal of Israel's destruction. Their "triumph" in Lebanon smacks of the "victory"  Al Qaeda claimed in Afghanistan-- yes, Osama and Zawahri (and Nasrallah) escaped to fight another day, but in the process they lost crucial assets and gave up important territory.

   Meanwhile, Israel's war aims remained distinctly more modest than Hezbollah's, and the ceasefire resolution actually brought the nation closer to their achievement. Yes, the Jewish state wanted to disarm if not destroy Hezbollah, and to free its two kidnapped soldiers, and the Army (because of poor strategic decisions from the Cabinet, particularly at the beginning of the war) achieved neither of these goals. But the broader purpose of the conflict was to create greater security for Northern Israel and to make it more difficult, if not impossible, for Hezbollah to launch random attacks, without consequences, whenever they chose to do so. The UN force headed for Southern Lebanon can't prevent those attacks with absolute assurance (after all, the international army will be led by the French) but the presence of blue helmets will insure that future Hezbollah strikes bring international consequences. The cease-fire specifically reserves for Israel the right to defend herself -- ruling out only "offensive military action." Moreover, the presence of 15,000 UN troops to stiffen an additional 15,000 Lebanese troops will make it all but unthinkable for Hezbollah's co-sponsor, Syria, to reoccupy their neighboring nation.

   In other words, while the war brings Hezbollah no closer to its cherished goal of wiping out Israel, it does bring Israel somewhat closer to its aim of providing more reliable security for the population of the North. If nothing else, it's vastly preferable to see a UN-Lebanese force along the northern border than to look at the bloodthirsty maniacs of Hezbollah, massed and dug in just steps away from Israeli soil.

   The claims of Hezbollah triumph, by the terrorists themselves and by some of Israel's well-meaning but deluded friends, only assist the Shiite fanatics in their desperate attempt to snatch victory from the jaws of a painful defeat. 

   The faltering campaign for same sex marriage has suffered recent reversals in the couts while offering increasingly dishonest arguments for its radical cause. A recent column in the Seattle Times featured the headline, "In Sickness  and in Health, 'til the Courst Do Us Part."

   The column, by gay partners Ken Molsberry and Chris Vincent, actually contradicted the headline: despite the Washington Supreme Court finding no right to same sex marriage in the state constitution, the two lovers had't been "parted" in any sense. In fact, their whole argument bristled with assertions of deathless commitment ("We love each other, we are devloted to each other") that no court or ever attempted to undermine. Denying governmental endorsement of their relationship (complete with special tax breaks) isn't the same thing as trying to drive them apart. Despite their current anger at the courts, gay activists should recognize that judges have done nothing to block same sex unions. They have repeatedly insisted, however, that governmental sanction for such unions should only come when the people and their elected representatives in state legislatures decide that it's necessary and appropriate.

   One of the most telling lines in the emotionally wrought column by Molsberry and Vincent declares: "We need to be treated fairly. We need to be able to say that we are legally married to each other. Without access to the word and to the instiution of marriage, we will always be second class citizens."

   This familiar refrain remains deeply dishonest and thoroughly misleading. Both Molsberry and Vincent already possess precisely the same "access to the word and to the instiution of marriage" as any of their heterosexual neighbors -- no more access, and no less. There isn't a single human being that a straight male can marry that a gay male can't. In no sense does their homosexual orientation make them second class citizens. But it might be fair to say that the government continues to view gay connections as second class relationships -- in the same sense that brother-and-sister would be considered second-class relatonships. No one suggests that the association between a brother-and-sister is punished because the government won't allow these two to marry, nor that a brother-and-sister association needs official endorsement in the same way that a husband-and-wife relationship does. When restricting the institution of marriage to people of the opposite sex who bear no close relationship to one another, society doesn't discriminate among individuals, but it does discriminate among the types of unions worthy of official sponsorship. As Molsberry and Vincent apparently prove with their ongoing devotion to one another, it's entirely possible to express love and build stable connections without such sponsorship.  

   Gay activists may claim that marriage rules ought to be changed to honor gay relationships as the equivalent of opposite-sex relationships, but it's dishonest to pretend that their cause involves anything less than a radical alteration of society's must fundamental institution.

  This morning, before leaving home to do my radio show, I got a call from my father in Jerusalem (where he's lived for the last 16 years). In Israel, it was shortly before the begining of the Sabbath at sundown, and he wanted to tell me a brief story appropriate to the idea of "Sabbath Peace" (Shabbat Shalom).

   It turns out that during the current war, more than 400,000 Israelis from the north of the country have been forced to flee from the daily barrage of Hizbollah rocket attacks. They have scattered across the rest of that small nation, out of range of the death-dealing terrorists, welcomed to temporary accomodations by volunteers among their fellow citizens. Jerusalem has absorbed more than 40,000 of these refugees, and my father and his wife, Yael, are currently hosting five children.

  This hospitality in the City of David, however, created a problem for some of the young guests. According to long-standing tradition, at sunset on Friday night, as the dusk settles and the city enters its indescrible Sabbath peace, the air raid sirens sound everywhere -- letting even the non-religious know that Shabbat is on hand. Unfortunately, some of the kids staying in Jerusalem after rocket attacks in the north had developed horrible associations with sirens: to these children, the sirens meant that Katyusha rockets were on the way. Last Friday, many of the young people wad sought refuge on the capital, began crying upon hearing hte Sabbath sirens-- exactly the opposite of the desired impact.

  So this Friday, instead of sirens, the city authorities welcomed the Sabbath by playing a few bars of "Shalom Aleichem" (Peace be with You), the traditional song which Jews sing around the Sabbath table to welcome the joy and renewal of the day. It's that traditional melody, by the way, that I use to conclude my radio show every Friday, coming back from the break for the last segment of the week. The words convey a mystical but direct message--

    "Peace Be With you, ministering angels/Angels from on High, from the King of Kings/ The Holy One, Blessed be He."

    As Israel accepts the new UN ceasefire in Lebanon, may peace be with all the citizens of Israel, and all the people of good will in Lebanon (who deserve better than the Hizbollah killers holding them hostage), and the leaders of the United States who continue to work tirelessly to bring a peace that lasts, sustains, and nourishes, while defending us here at home from the designs of evil-doers.

. Shabbat Shalom.

   British authorities deserve the thanks and admiration of all civilized societies for their apparent success in disrupting the most ambitious terror plot since 9/11. In the process, they have also helped to explode some of the most persistent - and pernicious - myths concerning the war on terror. After this week, it will be far more difficult for anyone with an IQ above room temperature to credit inane notions such as --

1) THERE'S NO REAL TERROR THREAT-- 9/11 WAS ORCHESTRATED BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO ENHANCE ITS OWN POWER. The internet-addled loon-dogs who advance this concept will now need to explain how the "neo-con" conspirators managed to work their will on the British government (led by Tony Blair's Labor Party) and to get the whole security and political apparatus of the United Kingdom to go along with the alleged charade. The upcoming trials of the British Muslim conspirators will, no doubt, provide abundant information about the true nature of the menace we face.

2) THE THREAT TO CIVIL LIBERTIES BY GOVERNMENTAL OVER-REACTION TO TERRORISM IS MORE MENACING THAN TERRORISM ITSELF. Imagining the devastating impact of a plot intended to blow up 10 airliners, killing some 3,500 innocent people, should remind everyone that mass murder remains an even more troubling prospect than governmental authorities monitoring international phone conversations by suspected terrorists. Sensibile people should hope that the British officials (who say that as many as twenty co-conspirators in the latest planned attack remain at large) will employ precisely those energetic interrogation techniques with the apprehended plotters that leftists decry as more frightening than the slaughter of thousands and the destruction of the civilian aviation system. The public may even accept a slow official response in providing the accused killers with Korans, prayer rugs and Halal meat.

3) THE CURRENT RAGE OF MUSLIMS AROUND THE WORLD REPRESENTS A RIGHTEOUS AND JUSTIFIED RESPONSE TO ISRAEL'S ACTIONS IN LEBANON. Those who advance this argument must now cope with inconvenient facts about the current terrorist scheme: its leaders obviously began their sophisticated planning process long before Israel responded to attacks from Gaza and Lebanon by a defensive war to secure its own borders.  

4) IF THE U.S. ONLY PURSUED A MORE "EVEN-HANDED" APPROACH TO THE MIDDLE EAST CRISIS WE WOULDN'T BE TARGETED BY TERRORIST FANATICS. The British government has made a point for more than ten years of pursuing amicable relations with the Palestinians and has announced precisely the sort of "even-handed" approach that critics of the Bush administration suggest for the United States. Nevertheless, the plot arose in the United Kingdom, not the far more notably pro-Israel United States.

5) IN ORDER TO REDUCE THE RISKS OF TERRORISM, WE NEED MORE RESPECT AND ACCEPTANCE OF ISLAM -- NOT MORE "REPRESSION." For years, Britain went further than any nation in the west in accomodating and coddling Muslim fanatics in its midst; before the July 7th bombings of last year, the Blair government never would have implemented the sort of "head scarf ban" which the French put in place, enraging Muslims everywhere. Nevertheless, it's the live-and-let-live British who have watched the emergence of "Londonistan" as the current center of Western terrorist activities. Appeasement of hostile cultures in domestic policy works no better than appeasement of hostile nations in foreign affairs.

In the days to come, as more details emerge on the horrifying plans of the Islamo-Nazi killers and the effective efforts of the counter-terrorist heroes in thwarting their schemes, the international Left will no doubt assert that the entire story amounts to a distraction from the "real issues" (like global warming, raising the minimum wage, sanctioning gay marriage, getting justice for the martyred Valerie Plame, dancing on Ken Lay's grave, and providing government health care for all). Actually, the news from London returns our focus to the only public debate that actually counts as a matter of life and death: the ongoing efforts to defend our civilization from the suicidal barbarians who seek to destroy it. It speaks volumes about the true nature of this struggle that our adversaries view the prospect of blowing up airplanes as the ultimate triumph -- since their societies could no more construct airplanes (or automobiles, for that matter) than they could provide human rights and a decent life for their own citizens. Politicians and commentators who fail to note the stark contrast between the nations of the West (with all our faults) and our psychotic and bloodthirsty enemies deserve no respect and no attention from people of good will.  

  Now that the dust has settled after Joe Lieberman's loss of the Democratic Senate nomination to the little known preppy twerp Ned Lamont, it's time for the veteran Democratic Senator to face two important challenges.

  1. For a respected and likeable public servant, Senator Lieberman can be a stunningly inept communicator. Tuesday night in an awkward non-concession speech he reached for a singularly stupid sports analogy to explain his decision to ignore the decision of the voters in his own party and to continue his candidacy as an independent. "As I see it," he told his cheering but tearful supporters in Hartford, "in this campaign we just finished the first half and the Lamont team is ahead. But, in the second half, our team, Team Connecticut, is going to surge forward to victory in November."

   Sorry, Joe, but in most games you don't get to change the rules after you lose the thing in regulation. Unless you're tied, there's no such thing as over time. The right sports analogy isn't first half vs. second half; it's League Championship Series vs. the World Series. If you lose the American League Championship Series, it's the other team -- the one that beat you -- that gets to compete in the World Series (the general election) against the National League Champions (the GOP nominee). As much as you'd like to be there, accepting two American League teams in the World Series fundamentally changes the rules. If Joe refuses to abide by the normal terms of electoral politics, he needs to explain why the issues in this campaign are important enough for him to do so. Otherwise, he looks like the sorest of losers who's continuing his campaign for the sake of ego, not principle.

   Lieberman will indeed lose the November election if he continues to pose the choice as a good-natured competition between "the Lamont Team" and "Team Connecticut." He must acknowledge that he is taking an extraordinary step to run as an independent, and to make the case that the stakes are so huge for the country and for his party that he has no other choice. He must make clear that he runs as an independent to prevent the takeover of the Democratic Party by political fringe groups that can't win because they don't deserve to win. Those fanatics attempted to criminalize Lieberman's common sense, his coalition building, his willingness to transcend partisan divides. Worst of all, they may not have questioned Lieberman's patriotism, but they questioned the value of patriotism itself-- an even worse tactic. "It's because of this effort to discredit and disregard all that's best in our political tradition, and in my public service," the Senator ought to say, "that I ask all my fellow citizens - of every party - who value that tradition and value that service, to join me in this unprecedented fight. It's a fight for patriotism over partisanship, for decency over demagoguery." If he makes the case that this election is crucially important (and I suspect it is) then it makes some sense for him to abandon all precedent and take on the nominee of his own party.

2. Concerning his new candidacy, Lieberman has repeatedly emphasized the fact that he still sees himself as a Democrat, and plans to caucus with his fellow Democrats and, if the opportunity presents itself, to give them his vote to take over the Senate. This is a bad move, and it may cost him the Republican and Independent support he will need to beat Lamont in November. Instead of running as a second Democratic alternative, Joe ought to embrace the independent status that his party's rejection has forced on him. For one thing, registered independents vastly outnumber Democrats (and Republicans) in Connecticut. For another, it makes no sense for Joe to come back to the Senate and to embrace his old friends on the Democratic side of the asile as if nothing has happened -- even after they all come out for his opponent and even travel to Connecticut to campaign for Lamont. Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton and other colleagues have already expressed their backing for Lamont, and their abandonment of Lieberman; John Kerry never endorsed Joe even in the primary.

  It therefore makes sense for Joe to pledge that if re-elected, he will return to Washington is a much needed independent voice for both Connecticut -- and the nation. He should refuse to caucus with either major party -- and establish an independent caucus of his own, which other Senators are welcome to join. If he does that, it makes it much easier for Republicans to follow our instincts and jump to Joe's support. He shouldn't be punished and smeared for supporting the troops and the president. If Joe pledges to exempt himself from partisan battles for control of the Senate, many leading lights of the GOP will come to his aid, combining with his remaining base among Democrats to establish a convincing margin of victory. If, however, the GOP decides to put up a credible candidate of its own (in place of the implausible and scandal-tinged Art Schlesinger) then Lamont would probably win as conservatives and moderates split their votes between Lieberman and the Republican nominee.

   Joe Lieberman must learn quick lessons from this difficult campaign. He should already realize that the Democratic Party has moved far to the left, and even further in the direction of shrill militancy, from the time of his Vice Presidential race just six years ago. His erstwhile running mate in that campaign, Al Gore, is an additional example of that new, ranting leftism and stridency.

  In responding to this ugly element in his own party, Joe should realize in his heart of hearts that it's not enough to remind people that he's a nice guy, who brought  lots of government favors to Connecticut. He must also show that he's a fighter -- hoping to battle shoulder to shoulder with Republicans and independents to resist the hysterical depradation sof the militant left.

  For conservatives watching this week's primary elections, Tuesday night brought good news and bad news.

  The bad news involves sympathy, even pity, for poor Joe Lieberman. I've known the man for thirty years and while I disagree with most of his voting record (which is conventionally liberal) you've got to admire his courage on the war and his personal commitment to the Orthodox Jewish faith we share. In terms of character, just think about this: the primary election was unexpectedly close (Lieberman lost, 48% to 52%) yet just three days before this most important election of his career, the Senator took 25 hours off, as he always does, to honor the Sabbath. This may never win him votes, but on some level, somewhere, it ought to count for something.

   On the other hand, there's good news: Lieberman immediately announced his independent candidacy, and that effort will keep the national Democratic Party deeply divided through November. What are high-profile Dems (Hillary, Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid) supposed to do? Ignore their own primary voters and their party's own official nominee and campaign for Joe, or else support Lamont and alienate what remains of the moderate wing of their own party? Left wing money that might have gone to defeating Rick Santorum or Mike DeWine will now come pouring into Connecticut to defeat Joe Lieberman--- who's almost certain to win as an Independent, given the awful quality of the current Republican candidate.

  Meanwhile, it's also worth celebrating that Cynthia McKinney went down to ignoble, overwhelming defeat in her drive for re-election --- barely clearing 40% of the primary vote as an incumbent. There's been considerable focus on McKinney's Jew hatred, but the real problem with the Congress Lady (using the term very advisedly) is her America-hatred. Now there's this rumor to turn the good news of her defeat into the even better news of future campaigns: some of her die-hard supporters want her to concentrate over the next few years on a run for the Presidency, representing disillusioned leftists and entertainment figures who are angry with the Democratic Party and yearn for Cynthia's strident, fearless voice. Run, Cynthia, run! Given the fact that the Dems will almost certainly nominate a mainstream liberal (Hillary, Kerry or Gore), we can expect a Nader-like fringe candidate who will peel away some of the nutburgers who would otherwise ride the Donkey. Russ Feingold would probably be the most formidable leftist candidate for some Third or Fourth Party, and there's also talk of Michael Moore making a race--- but he's too busy with his new movie ("Sicko") for the moment. Then there's McKinney: a woman of color, a celebrity who's suddenly unemployed, furiously angry (listen to her "concession" speech last night) and addicted to the public spotlight.

  Her potential candidacy gives conservatives even more reason to celebrate the results of these primaries.